1st XI Match Report (h) -v- Merrion – Division 1

Syed Ali and T Hashmi dropped out of the side for this match with Adam Chester and Sim Singh both earning a call up from the selectors. Gollum Rahman remained out of favour. Given the dodgy weather forecast Captain Ford inserted the visitors after his victory in tossing the coin. The eleven who took the field for Phoenix were Captain David Ford, M D Masud Ahmed, Richie Lawrence, Emmanuel “Lucky” Peterson, Adam Chester, Eoin Cleere, Thomas Anders, Rory Anders, wicket keeper Jonathan Wardell, Ben White, Sim Singh. Your correspondent was not the most essential component of the scoring trio but at least the circumstances permitted him to keep a pen and paper record.

Thomas Anders opened with a tidy maiden over but his brother trumped this by bowling Allwright with his third legitimate delivery. Beasley and Brown steadied the ship for the visitors but they knew they were in a game when they lost the opener to Peterson and the number three to Thomas Anders with the score on 38. There followed a sustained batting assault and despite rotating the bowlers to keep them fresh Captain Ford’s men were unable to come up with the unplayable delivery they needed to make another inroad. After a stand of 150 Poder finally went for 61 caught White bowled Masud Ahmed and after taking two more wickets fairly quickly Phoenix took a back seat again as the seventh wicket partnership produced 79 before the full allocation of overs was used up.

Captain Ford and Masud Ahmed began the chase with Phoenix needing 290 to win. Like the Merrion openers earlier this pair struggled and Lawrence and Peterson were soon at the crease with the score on 18 for 2. Peterson had made 1 when he was sidelined by hamstring trouble and the next stand was that of Chester and Lawrence which made some progress before both fell in the same over to Brown to make it 72 for 4. Cleere made a brief 6 and found himself acting as a runner for Peterson while Thomas Anders patiently accumulated runs at the other end. Phoenix were up against it when Peterson was out for 73 and was followed shortly by Rory Anders after a run out but Wardell and Thomas Anders kept the runs coming. With Phoenix needing 12 to win from the last over the visitors managed to confine the batsmen to singles and so Phoenix earned 5 points and the visitors 20.

Youth Training Times 2017

In the event of bad weather please call our Training Hotline, 083 1930 626, where a recording of the training status, if necessary, will be available at least one hour before sessions are due to begin.